


It was Uhura's Fault

by Kitty_Kinneas



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-13
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2019-05-21 22:44:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14924267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kitty_Kinneas/pseuds/Kitty_Kinneas
Summary: If you asked them about it later, Sulu and Chekov would both freely admit it was Uhura's fault. She was the one with the weakness for cute things. They couldn't be held accountable. All they did was collect a crate.





	It was Uhura's Fault

**Author's Note:**

> One of my contributions for the Star Trek Reverse Bang '18. I had a lot of fun writing this fic, and it has accompanying art by the wonderful Holodeck Puppies.

Bones was not unused to wondering what his life had come to. He’d gone through a bitter divorce, met James T. Kirk in extraordinary circumstances, and now he spent most of his life in space, a place which he hated. Or, more to the point, he knew enough about to be one hundred percent afraid of it.

 

But this was beyond a joke. As if the first time hadn’t been enough…

 

He shoved an arm across his workbench to clear at least some sort of path to his computer, sitting down and typing furiously on it. Every other scientist and doctor he contacted had no answer...

 

_One month earlier._

 

Uhura was beside herself with excitement. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her work, or the people she worked with, but sometimes a girl just needed a break. In fact, the whole crew needed a break, they could all feel it. It had been months since their last real shoreleave and all of them needed it.

 

She glanced at Chekov as the ship began to dock and grinned. He grinned back at her. It was going to be a good trip.

 

They were headed for a trading hub that serviced planets from the whole quadrant around. The hub took up the entire planet, with half of it covered in what was basically a huge market while the other half was taken up by resorts and fancy hotels that serviced all the visitors to the planet, making it equally as full of tourists as it was of serious traders. They’d been before, probably a year and a half ago, and they were all excited to come back.

 

She’d been saving credits and interesting objects collected on various missions to obscure planets for months in preparation for this shoreleave, so she had plenty to shop with. She knew there were plenty of traders who would accept credits and, if they didn’t, the objects she had should serve as good barter.

 

The Captain spoke, interrupting her thoughts. “Lieutenant Uhura, please signal a ship-wide broadcast.”

 

She reached up and flicked a couple of switches.

 

“Channel open, Captain.”

 

“Thank you.” He stood, folding his hands behind his back. “Attention all hands. This is your Captain speaking. Please remember when on the planet you are still members of Starfleet and, as such, will behave in an appropriate manner.” He took a breath, a smile breaking across his countenance. “That being said, have fun too. You’ve all earned the break. Please ensure if you’ve been put on the skeleton crew, you report back to the ship at the appropriate time, and remember, we leave in seven days at oh-nine-hundred. No delays. We won’t wait for you if you’re not back.”

 

That was a lie, and they all knew it. No way would Jim Kirk leave anyone behind. But they would all be back on time, because he asked it of them, and the crew of _Enterprise_ would do anything for their Captain, even if he was insufferable sometimes.

 

“As soon as docking procedures are completed and we’re squared away, you may go ashore. Kirk, out.”

 

A cheer went up and Jim grinned as he sat back down. “Bring her in, Mr. Sulu.”

 

“Aye, Captain.”

 

Sulu’s touch was feather light these days, far removed from that embarrassing first moment when he’d failed to launch the ship on command. They came in perfectly, impulse engines firing one at a time under Sulu’s fingers. All along _Enterprise’s_ underbelly, jets of blue flame pushed the ship in minute movements that brought her easily and carefully closer until the magnetic docking struts could lock in and carry her into the huge port that served the whole planet.

 

Sulu sat back, folding his hands behind his head and Chekov reached over to pat his bicep, earning a grin in return.

 

“Rest easy, girl,” Kirk said, patting his chair affectionately.

 

“Captain, the scheduled repairs and upgrades have been delivered,” Spock said, coming alongside him with a data padd.

 

“Thank you, Mr. Spock,” Kirk said and they bowed their heads together, discussing the schedule as their ship powered down, now locked securely in place. When all was silent, Kirk lifted his head and said; “Crew dismissed.”

 

Uhura jumped up and ran over to Chekov who tore his eyes away from Sulu to look up at her. He grinned. “I see you are ready to go,” he said, his accent as endearing as ever.

 

“Of course! It’s shopping!” she replied, pushing her thick ponytail back behind her shoulder.

 

Chekov laughed, then looked to Sulu again. “Can Sulu come too?”

 

She’d been expecting this and her grin only grew. “Of course.”

 

“Why would I want to come with you two?” he mocked, shaking his head. “You always get me into trouble.”

 

“That’s why you like it so much,” she replied, grabbing his arm. “Come on. You know how sad Chekov will be if you say no.”

 

Sulu rolled his eyes, but he was grinning and he stood without her having to tug all that hard at all.

 

“Okay, okay. Fine. But no weird creatures. You know that always ends badly.”

 

“You’re the weirdest creature here,” Uhura replied teasingly. She hooked her arms into one each of the boys’ and they headed off the ship together.

 

\- - - - - - -

 

Uhura had always enjoyed going shopping with Chekov. Ever since they were assigned to the _Enterprise_ , they’d nearly always spent the first couple of days of shoreleave shopping with one another. Chekov had always been fun to be around, and adorable besides, but his adorable quotient had risen in the last six or eight months, when he had started a completely awkward courtship - for lack of a better word - of Sulu.

 

They were at it now, trying on weird necklaces made of chips of shell from some far off ocean planet and laughing at each other. They stopped trying on necklaces of their own and started picking out the ugliest ones to hang on each other, probably as an excuse to get their hands on one another. She really couldn’t figure out why they didn’t just get on with it. Clearly they were both besotted.

 

She gave them their space, busy checking out much prettier beaded necklaces and earrings and thinking about whether or not to get her hair braided. There were plenty of stalls dedicated to such things, and she had such long, thick hair she thought it would be a nice change, and striking besides, to have it pulled into hundreds of tiny braids. Some of those providing the service also laced in coloured beads or ribbons.

 

She’d just started towards one of the braiders when there was a sudden shout and, as Uhura looked over, an entire stall tipped over, knocked by a hulking alien of some sort. She watched, gobsmacked, as the alien bounced off another stall, sending showers of shattered glass shards to the ground. More and more stallholders were giving angry cries as it continued to crash through the market, apparently uncaring of how many traders’ livelihoods it was destroying.

 

Something whizzed past Uhura’s feet too quickly for her to see what it was, but she could easily surmise the alien was in pursuit of it. She turned, immediately worried for whatever it was if the alien caught it. He… or she… seemed very angry, and now it would probably become worse, because there would be other aliens mad at _it_.

 

She dashed after the streak, keeping easily ahead of the alien - it was very slow. Probably, she thought, her fear was unfounded because whatever it was could likely get away easily. But she wanted to help it, if she could. She was pretty sure it was some kind of small animal. Perhaps the alien was trying to sell it - or worse, eat it.

 

Chekov and Sulu realised belatedly she had taken off and, after exchanging a glance, they ran after her, calling her name. She didn’t stop, though the thing she was chasing kept running for a good while. Behind her, the sounds of the huge alien’s progress faded, and she spared a thought for it when the stallholders got hold of it. But it was brief, her attention taken completely as she chased her quarry around a corner into an alley.

 

“Oh!” she cried, stopping in her tracks. She heard her companions skid to a halt behind her.

 

Of all things, it was an Alfa 177 dog - a unicorn dog. The last time they’d seen one had ended badly for the poor little thing, re-integration of its two doggy selves being too much of a shock to its system.

 

This one looked scared, knocking over a rubbish bin as it backed into a corner, whining. It was on the thin side, its fur matted and its horn chipped and rough. It pushed itself right up against a stack of crates that wobbled precariously, prompting Uhura to stop approaching it, afraid it might topple them on itself.

 

“Oh, you poor baby,” Uhura said, crouching down and holding out a hand. “Chekov, Sulu, do either of you have any food?”

 

“No,” Sulu said firmly, meaning more than just the food. “Uhura. Just no.”

 

“Just no, what? I’m not doing anything, just feeding it.”

 

“That is where it will start, but we are all knowing where it will finish,” Chekov said uneasily. Yes, Uhura’s soft spot for adorable creatures was well known - and always got them in trouble. “We should just be going.”

 

Uhura rolled her eyes and reached into her own bag, finding a rather old protein bar. She wouldn’t eat it, but she bet a hungry unicorn dog would. And she was right. When she held out a piece, the frightened creature crawled forwards on its belly, only as near as it needed to get so it could stretch its neck out and snatch the morsel of food. Each subsequent bite, it grew bolder, and by the time she was finished feeding it the whole thing, she was able to pet it. She scratched between its filthy ears, around the base of the horn until it’s shaking subsided and it was resting comfortably in her arms.

 

“I know where this is going,” Sulu said, tugging at Chekov’s arm. “We should leave her to it, so we don’t get-”

 

“We need to find a crate or something to put it in, so we can sneak it onto the ship,” Uhura piped up suddenly, eyeballing them significantly.

 

“-dragged into it…” Sulu finished, smacking his palm against his face. “No. No, I’m not helping you find something to smuggle that thing aboard. Someone will eventually find it, and we’ll be for it.”

 

Uhura turned her attention on the younger, more eager to please Russian. “Chekov… you’ll help me, right?”

 

Sulu scowled and began pulling Chekov away. “No he won’t.”

 

“Sulu,” Chekov said. “Come on, it is just dog. Technically Earth dog, once upon a time.”

 

“That… it’s not… It’s _definitely_ not an Earth dog anymore.”

 

The Alfa 177 whined and looked up at them with damp eyes and Sulu knew he would do it almost immediately. He couldn’t fight puppy-dog eyes from both the literal puppy and from Chekov.

 

“Ugh, fine. _Fine_. Come on, Chekov. We’ll go find something to transport it in. Uhura, you stay here with it and keep it calm.”

 

\- - - - - - -

 

It was a good thing the ship was on a skeleton crew, because the Alfa 177 would not hold still or be quiet in the crate. It leaped about and barked, yipped and whined, making it not only noisy, but harder to carry too. It seemed like the journey to Uhura’s quarters took them an age, though it was not that much longer than the usual ten minute trip from the transporters.

 

The moment they opened the crate, the dog jumped out and went tearing around the room in circles, barking joyously.

 

“Uhura,” Chekov hissed. “Someone will hear!”

 

“How am I supposed to stop it?!” she demanded, throwing her hands up. After a moment, though, it stopped on its own, sitting in the middle of her room panting through a doggy smile.

 

“It smells very bad,” Chekov pointed out into the relative silence. “We should give it bath.”

 

“I’m not-” Sulu started.

 

“Then stay out here,” Uhura declared and went to pick up the unicorn dog, which it let her do easily enough. It had clearly quite rapidly associated her with food, and would let her do pretty much anything. “Chekov, would you run the bath, please?”

 

Chekov was only too happy to escape the room and Sulu’s judgement, hurrying through to the bathroom to do as she asked. Momentarily, they heard the water running.

 

“This is a terrible idea, Uhura,” Sulu said.

 

“Yes, so you’ve said, but I disagree. The poor thing would have died if that alien got hold of it. Even if it didn’t, she might have starved to death.”

 

“She…? You can’t keep it. Don’t give it a gender.”

 

“I didn’t _give_ her the gender, it _is_ her gender,” Uhura declared.

 

“Bath is ready!” Chekov called and Uhura carried the Alfa 177 through to the bathroom.

 

“What if it does not like water?” Chekov wondered.

 

“ _She_ has to have a bath anyway,” she replied. “She stinks and I’m not letting her spread any more parasites around my quarters.”

 

“This is understandable,” Chekov decided and helped her lower the animal into the bath. Amusingly, she pinwheeled her legs just before she touched the water, instinctively getting ready to swim though the water was only ankle deep and once she was in, she didn’t seem to mind it at all. She was also quite happy to let them soap her up and scrub away the dirt and grime from her coat, scaled spine and horn.

 

The trouble came when they tried to dry her. It seemed she didn’t like being under the towel. Or maybe it was just that she thought it was a game. She sank her sharp little teeth into the towel and worried it with a shaking of her head, then took off with it around Uhura’s quarters again, this time trailing droplets of water rather than chunks of grime, which was a definite improvement.

 

Eventually, they caught her and she growled playfully and gave small yips as Uhura finished drying her. Uhura smiled fondly and once that task was done, went to fix something for the unicorn dog to eat.

 

While she was eating, Chekov and Uhura discussed possible names while Sulu scowled, arms folded, and every so often added that they should get rid of it before it caused them more trouble.

 

“Arabella,” Uhura decided after a long debate. “Yes, I think that’s it. She-”

 

There was a knock on the door. They exchanged horrified looks.

 

“Take her in there,” Uhura hissed then called; “Coming!” and made her way slowly towards the door.

 

Chekov snatched up the newly-christened Arabella and hurried into the bedroom. It was a tense moment. Perhaps Arabella felt his nerves, or perhaps it was just because she’d already gotten to used to the freedom she had, but she began to yip softly. Chekov tried to quiet her, running a soothing hand over her fur, but she was having none of it.

 

As he heard approaching footsteps and looked around wildly for somewhere else to hide her, she suddenly jumped out of his arms and went to the door, scratching at it. “No,” he hissed. “Arabella, no, no.”

 

But it was too late. Uhura’s visitor opened the door.

 

Arabella shot out between his legs and ran straight to Uhura, who knelt to pat her. “Oh, you silly thing,” she said.

 

Bones was standing with his hands fisted against his hips, shaking his head. “This… what the hell, Uhura? We weren’t supposed to pick up an Alfa dog from here.”

 

She looked up, smiling sweetly but guiltily, like a child caught with a stolen cookie. “She was being chased. We rescued her.”

 

“‘We’?” Bones echoed, turning his disapproving gaze on Sulu and Chekov.

 

“Hey. Hey, I told her no. I said it was a bad idea,” Sulu said hastily, perfectly ready to throw the others under the bus.

 

“You did find the crate, though,” Chekov put in, getting his own back.

 

Bones scowled at them all.

 

“She’s for science,” Uhura blurted desperately.

 

“Science?” Bones echoed, arching a brow. His hands moved off his hips as he crossed his arms, shifting his weight to one foot. “Probably should take her to Spock, then, right?”

 

“Oh! Oh, no!” Uhura cried, standing with Arabella in her arms.

 

Bones sighed, pushing his hand through his hair. “You’re gonna have to tell the Captain about this, but at least let me take the damn thing to the medbay and check it for diseases.”

 

“She doesn’t have diseases!” Uhura protested like he’d said _she_ had diseases.

 

“It lives in space. Of course it does,” he said dryly. “Come on, all of you, I better check you too.”

 

“Was there something you needed?” Uhura asked as they left, wondering why Bones had even come there.

 

“I heard the damn thing barking! I can’t believe you thought you’d get away with this,” he said dryly.

 

They followed him out, looking properly chagrined.

 

Not one of them saw the round, fluffy thing scurry out of the open crate and into a nearby air vent.

 

\- - - - - - -

 

As it turned out, Arabella was disease free and so were her saviours. Upon bringing the Alfa dog to their Captain, she was accepted as a sort of mascot for the ship. Spock, of course, had put up quite a protest, citing rules and regulations, guidelines and directives. But Kirk cited Admiral Archer’s famous beagle back at him and, eventually, even he was caught giving her a stick of celery which, surprisingly, she wolfed down eagerly.

 

They left the trading planet on another deep-space mission a week after they found her and three weeks after that, she began behaving strangely.

 

One morning, when Uhura woke and began getting ready for her shift, she found Arabella in the middle of her living area, growling up at the ceiling and jumping towards it repeatedly.

 

“Hey, girl, there’s nothing up there. Just pipes and ducts,” she said, going to prepare Arabella’s breakfast. The food soon distracted the Alfa dog from whatever had taken her interest.

 

But over the next couple of days, lots of crew found her in the same manner, or sniffing and scrabbling at lower vents, her horn rattling and clanging off the metal. It became increasingly harder to distract her from this pursuit until finally, one late night shift when Arabella would normally have been sleeping at the foot of Uhura’s bed, she was instead causing an uproar on the bridge, desperately trying almost to shove herself inside the vent.

 

“What? _What_? Okay, fine!” Sulu burst out after he and the couple of crewmen on the bridge overnight had all tried to coax her away from the vent. He took out a screwdriver from an emergency engineering kit stowed under one of the work stations.

 

As soon as he took the vent cover off, Arabella shot inside, eliciting a yelp of surprise from Sulu himself. She was gone for a good ten minutes, then she came clattering out again with something in her small jaws.

 

She dropped it at Sulu’s feet, and at first he thought it was some sort of tattered pompom. Then it wriggled and made a familiar purring, trilling sound. Sulu’s eyes went wide.

 

“Is that-” one of the crewmen started.

 

“Yes. Yes, it is. It’s a damned Tribble.”

 

Arabella barked and ran back into the vent again. By the time she finished making trips, there were fourteen tribbles of varying sizes and colours heaped at Sulu’s feet. He groaned and put a call through to Kirk.

 

\- - - - - - -

 

The first thing Kirk did was to order a ship wide search for the things. Arabella was enourmously helpful in this process, able to sniff them out with pinpoint accuracy. The only good thing was that they didn’t have a hold full of grains this time to sustain massive multiplication like the last time, but the creatures still seemed to be able to find some form of food, no matter what the crew did.

 

Even once they had gathered all the Tribbles they could find and put them in one place, where they deprived them of food, they kept appearing.

 

That was how Bones found his workbench covered in them and had to clear the way to his computer with a sweep of his arm. Overnight, one or two tribbles had got into the supply of liquid food supplements for patients who, for whatever reason, couldn’t eat and a mini explosion in population had occurred.

 

Bones called for the detail of crewman who had been tasked with removing any more Tribbles that turned up and taking them to the cargo bay where they were being kept.

 

It seemed they would be staying there for a long while, because unfortunately, the _Enterprise_ was in deep space, the distance between habitable planets long, so there was nowhere they could put the Tribbles off. Besides that, they clearly hadn’t found them all, because they kept turning up, even despite Arabella’s instincts.

 

Bones had contacted other scientists and doctors to try and figure out some answer - some way of tracking them within the systems of the ship, or at least impacting on their ability to breed. Everyone came back negative - the best way to stop Tribble infestations was to make sure you never brought them on board in the first place.

 

“Thank you very much,” Bones muttered dryly at his computer screen. “I could not have figured that out without you.”

 

Uhura came into the medbay with Arabella and the removalists, the Alfa dog sniffing out even the most hidden Tribbles. Chekov and Sulu were with them. After all, everyone had figured out it was _their fault_ they were overrun like this. Clearly the first Tribble had come in the crate with Arabella.

 

Bones watched them. “So, for ‘science’, hm? What could possibly require this many live specimens?”

 

Uhura pulled a face at him, huffing her displeasure from the middle of a pile of Tribbles that had fallen out when she opened an overhead vent Arabella had indicated.

 

“Haven’t you found some way to stop them?”

 

“Lock up the food better,” he said with an open handed shrug, because it was the answer he had as of yet.

 

“Mr. Scott and I have been working on a way to scan for them and transport them,” Chekov put in, pulling a Tribble out from behind the desk. “We can successfully scan for them now, but we are still working on the transport. Besides, we have to have somewhere to transport them to.”

 

“Open space?” Bones suggested dryly.

 

“Oh, Doctor! That’s not funny. It’s not their fault,” Uhura said, clutching one of the larger Tribbles against her chest and stroking it.

 

He smiled ferally at her. “It wasn’t supposed to be. Who says it was a joke? I’m sick of these blasted things, aren’t you? It isn’t as if there won’t be more of them, even if we do kill all of these ones!”

 

She shook her head, scowling at him and he relented. “Alright, alright. That’s why we changed course, isn’t it? So we could get the things to a habitable planet - which they’ll probably eat into barrenness and then die anyway.”

 

Her scowl deepened and he threw up his hands, leaving them to their work once he’d tossed all the ones on his workbench into the pile they were creating.

 

He already had five Tribbles in test cases on his workbench, testing them to see if there was some way he could at least put them into dormancy, probably sleeping, so they would stop breeding.

 

“Chekov,” he said as the group was about to leave with several large containers full of Tribbles, wheeled along on carts.

 

“Yes, Sir?” Chekov asked, looking back at him.

 

“Did you say you can track the Tribbles now?” Bones asked, tapping the side of one of the cases.

 

“Affirmative, Sir.”

 

“Good. That’s good,” Bones said, tapping harder and, eventually, shaking the case. The Tribble just kept breathing evenly, making no sound, none of its gentle trilling, humming song. “Because I think I’ve found a way to put the damn things to sleep. Now, if I can suspend it in some kind of aerosol we should, theoretically, be able to spray it into any places your scans find them.

 

“Oh, that is very good, Doctor!” Chekov enthused and Bones smiled despite himself.

 

“Yes. It’s something, at least.”

 

\- - - - - - -

 

They began by spraying it on the Tribbles collected in the cargo bay. Despite the crew’s certainty they had cut those ones off from food, they were still slowly breeding, a new litter being born every couple of days rather than every couple of hours.

 

It worked. The Tribbles went straight to sleep and could no longer multiply. Then, with a combination of Chekov and Scotty’s scanner and Arabella’s keen nose, they hunted out the last of the Tribbles hiding around the ship and sprayed them too. Once they fell asleep, they were easier to collect and catch, as they didn’t run away.

 

Soon, they were fairly confident all the Tribbles had been taken to the cargo bay and were sleeping peacefully. Certainly, no more population explosions had happened for four days. Moreover, they were getting closer to a habitable planet they would be able to put them on.

 

“I am unsure this is a wise decision,” Spock said, though, as they came upon it. “If we introduce the Tribbles here, they could destroy the local ecosystem.”

 

“What else are we supposed to do?” Kirk asked, looking frayed and hassled, the way most of them had looked since the first Tribbles had been discovered.

 

“I do not know, but it seems irresponsible,” Spock replied, and indeed it did. Tribbles were voracious, as Kirk and his crew knew all too well.

 

“I might have a solution,” Bones’ voice came through the comms. “Sorry to eavesdrop. I think I can sterilise them.”

 

Kirk and Spock exchanged a glance and Kirk rubbed his hand over his face and hair. “It might have been an idea to tell us that sooner, Bones.”

 

“I didn’t know it sooner, Captain,” Bones said a little grumpily. “Or I would have. I’ve been doing tests on the ones I have here and I think I’ve found a way. I tried it on three of them I have here and fed them everything they could eat. They actually stopped eating and didn’t reproduce. They’re just sleeping.”

 

“They even stopped eating?” Spock asked, one brow arching. For him, that was a strong show of surprise.

 

“Yep,” Bones said. “So they should have less of an impact down there. Especially if we can find an isolated island or something to put them on.”

 

“Mr. Chekov, start scanning for something like that,” Kirk said, then to Bones; “Test a bigger group. I want to be sure before we send them down.”

 

“Aye, Captain.”

 

\- - - - - - -

 

It was easier, with the large quantity of Tribbles they now had, to transport them down in shuttles, big containers full of them carried in the small holds. There were fifteen containers in all, and they did it with five shuttles making three trips each.

 

The landing parties checked the area carefully for any large mammals that might be affected by the Tribbles, but the island they had chosen was relatively barren, only a few plants here and there. A lot of insects seemed to make their home, and very small reptiles, but that was about it.

 

“Will this be enough food for them?” Uhura worried, indicating the small saltbushes and spiny cacti.

 

“Yes,” Bones said firmly, unloading Tribbles as fast as he could. He didn’t even know why Kirk had forced him into one of the landing parties. The Tribbles were all sterile now, and didn’t need to be kept asleep.

 

Probably he was just getting some kind of childish amusement out of it.

 

“They can live on less, and that’s while reproducing. They need even less now they’re not doing that. I-”

 

“Tested it, I know,” Uhura said, but she didn’t look convinced. She was worried Bones would say anything to be rid of the Tribbles. And, while they were hugely annoying, she also still found them just as adorable as ever.

 

He seemed to sense this and turned to her, touching her forearm. “I promise you they’ll be fine, and live out the rest of their lives here. We can’t do anything. We can’t keep them in the cargo bay forever.”

 

“I know,” she sighed. “It’s just… they’re so cute.”

 

“Uhura, that’s what got us into this mess in the first place!

 

“I didn’t know there was a Tribble in that crate! That’s entirely Chekov and Sulu’s fault!” she argued.

 

“Excuse me, there _wasn’t_ ,” Sulu put in suddenly and firmly tossing an armful of Tribbles out into the bushes. “It was empty. The damned thing must have been hidden in Arabella’s fur. That’s entirely _your_ fault.”

 

She huffed, but she couldn’t argue with that. It seemed though Arabella had been disease free, she hadn’t been problem free.

 

“Well… well, it’s done now,” she declared, also reaching into one of the big containers and pulling out armloads of Tribbles to release. They certainly seemed happy enough, making their peculiar trilling purr sound and investigating their new habitat.

 

Sulu scoffed, shaking his head and Chekov patted his arm gently, grinning at him. They always seemed to drag the pilot into such mischief and trouble, but he just kept letting it happen. He flapped his hand at Chekov, pushing him away, though gently.

 

“Don’t you remember what I said, from the very beginning?” he asked both of them, putting his hands on his hips.

 

The other two grinned, exchanging a glance and, after a moment or two, Sulu was grinning too.

 

“No weird creatures!” they chorused together.

 

“Amen to that,” muttered Bones, and they continued scooping Tribbles out into their new home.


End file.
